Petition: Harvard, cut ties with makers of OxyContin

One of Harvard's biggest donors is the maker of OxyContin.

Dear fellow MoveOn member,

Since OxyContin appeared in 1996, more than 200,000 people have died in the United States from prescription opioid overdoses. OxyContin's maker, Purdue Pharma, coordinated an effort to mislead doctors and patients about the dangers of OxyContin and other opioid painkillers.¹ 

Here in Massachusetts, the opioid crisis has hit hard. In 2016 alone, there were 1,821 opioid-related overdose deaths in our state.² And yet one of our state's most prestigious universities, Harvard, takes millions of dollars from the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma.

Harvard University must immediately cut all ties with the Sackler family and refuse any future funding from them.

Purdue Pharma has been the target of numerous lawsuits due to its efforts to flood the market with OxyContin. 

Massachusetts' own attorney general, Maura Healey, recently filed a lawsuit that aims to hold members of the Sackler family personally responsible for deliberately misleading the public about the dangers of OxyContin.³

The lawsuits are a good start, but we need to pressure Harvard to completely cut ties as well.

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Thanks!

—Jeremy Cohen

Sources:

1. "Sacklers Directed Efforts to Mislead Public About OxyContin, New Documents Indicate," The New York Times, January 15, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/62032?t=9&akid=225327%2E10220574%2EPctv0O

2. "Massachusetts Opioid Summary," National Institute on Drug Abuse, accessed January 22, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/62126?t=11&akid=225327%2E10220574%2EPctv0O

3. "Sacklers Directed Efforts to Mislead Public About OxyContin, New Documents Indicate," The New York Times, January 15, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/62032?t=13&akid=225327%2E10220574%2EPctv0O

You're receiving this petition because we thought it might interest you. It was created on MoveOn.org, where anyone can start their own online petitions. You can start your own petition here.

Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?

Click here to chip in $3, or whatever you can afford.

Contributions to MoveOn.org Civic Action are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. This email was sent to Eddie Alfaro on January 23, 2019. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.